


Five Times Kurt Hummel Dressed In Drag, and One Time He Refused To

by portraitofemmy



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, trans!klaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taken from a prompt on transklaine: Echoing Kurt’s “not gonna happen” when Sue insists he wears drag for Nationals: 5 times Kurt dressed in drag (willingly or not, though I imagine it’d be more because he’s been obliged to than not) and one time he absolutely refused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Kurt Hummel Dressed In Drag, and One Time He Refused To

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for dysphoria, offensive language (t-word)

1)  
  
When Liesl was 3, all she wanted for her birthday was a pair of sensible heels. They were what her mom wore, after all. She’d watch her mom come home after work, looking tired and pale ( _so pale, getting paler, Liesl didn’t know and nobody said, not for a while_ ) and slip off her shoes. Liesl would slide into her mom’s shoes, clomp around the house in a romper and heels too big, and she’d make her mom laugh so hard.  
  
She loved making her mom laugh. She loved the way Elizabeth would bend down and scoop her up and carry her around the house, hold Liesl on her hip while she cooked dinner, kissed her forehead as she sang show tunes in a high, clear voice. Liesl love her mom’s singing, her laughter, she loved being able to be the thing that banished the paleness from her cheeks.  
  
“Your the daughter I always wanted,” Elizabeth would whisper when she tucked Liesl in at night, and Liesl would smile because all she really understood was that she was making her momma so happy. That’s all she really wanted.  
  
The heels, when she got them for her birthday, were small. They were child size, intended for little girls, not momma’s who came home from work to laugh with their daughters. They felt wrong, and Liesl didn’t know why. Elizabeth didn’t laugh and scoop her up when she was wearing them, didn’t treat her like a silly child playing dress up. These weren’t dress up shoes, they were real, wear-out-in-public shoes. Liesl hated them.  
  
She cried when her mom made her wear them, cried and pulled at the frilly birthday dress and kicked off the heels and threw an all mighty fit because she hated the dress and the heels. It made her feel all wrong, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t understand.  
  
Elizabeth, pale and tired ( _still getting paler_ ) scooped up her daughter and whispered calming words in her ear. “It’s alright, love, you don’t have to wear the dress if you don’t want to. It’ll probably just get dirty anyway.” Liesl stopped crying and snuggled in close, and let herself be soothed.  
  
  
  
2)  
  
When Elizabeth died, Liesl asked if she could wear a suit to the funeral. She was eight, and grieving, and she didn’t want to wear a pretty dress or heels. Her mom wasn’t there to laugh at her silliness and scoop her up, and there was nothing left to feel good about in a dress anymore. The feeling of wrongness she’d felt wearing her heels for the first time hung all over the black dress propped up against the door of her closet. She wanted to wear a suit like her dad, and hold his hand, and forget about being the daughter her mother always wanted.  
  
Of course, Burt said no. He had no reason not too. Elizabeth had always been too soft on Liesl, let her get away with anything she wanted, and Burt honestly couldn’t handle flights of fancy right now. He was left alone with a daughter, who he loved with his entire being, but who had always been closer to her mother.  
  
So he made Liesl wear the dress, ignored the way she cried the entire time he forced her into it. He felt bad, making her cry, but Elizabeth’s entire family would be at this ( _not a funeral, can’t be, she can’t really be gone_ ) church. If they saw Liesl in a suit at her own mother’s funeral, what would they think? They’d think Burt wasn’t fit to raise her, and they’d take her away from him. He couldn’t loose them both, he just couldn’t.  
  
Liesl was quiet through the funeral, the tears from early dried off her face. She held his hand and looked pretty, quiet and calm, and everyone told him well, at least she’s so good. At least she’ll make it easy for him. For a flash of a moment, staring the eyes of one of Elizabeth’s aunts who had never liked him, he wishes he’d let Liesl wear a suit. He didn’t want an easy child, who would hollow out and become a shell. He wanted the vibrant child he’d always known.  
  
It occurred to him later, driving home with Liesl quiet in the back seat, maybe Elizabeth hadn’t been too soft on their daughter. Maybe she’d just been allowing her to be herself.  Forcing a child to behave was what Burt had always thought good parenting was, but maybe he needed to open his mind a bit as to what “good behavior” entailed. He missed his wife with a sudden stabbing pain. Liesl deserved more than he thought he could give her.  
  
Later, he found the dress in the laundry room, torn in a very deliberate fashion. Part of him wanted to punish Liesl for being deliberately destructive. It wasn’t okay for her to ruin her things, especially since he would have to be putting more time than ever into the shop to make ends meet. Still, he remembered her sobs as he made her wear that dress. Maybe it was his fault, not hers. Instead, he vowed to himself that he would never to try to make Liesl into something she wasn’t, and went upstairs to try to cook their first Friday night dinner for just the two of them.  
  
  
  
3)  
  
It took Liesl a while to figure out what was going on in her head. It took her a while to start using a new name even to herself. It took a while to switch around pronouns and get used to the idea of being Kurt. But ultimately, it felt better than anything he’d ever felt before. Like he’d finally stopped lying to himself, like he’d woken up from a dream, from a nightmare.  
  
Kurt started to seep through the facade of Liesl in middle school. He chopped of all his hair, long enough to brush forward into a bob when he needed too, but short enough to style up and out of his face. He wore pants, and boots, and still shopped in the girls section, for now, because it’s where his dad took him. But that was alright, he was young enough that if he avoided pinks it didn’t really matter. Fashion has no gender he reminded himself, and buried his face in Vouge magazine full of boys who looked how he wanted to look.  
  
Still, it didn’t matter how many pairs of jeans Kurt bought, how short he cut his hair, how many times he laid in bed and thought about his real name and his real form. Kurt still had a girl’s body and girl’s societal expectations. He has a pair of nice slacks, a button down shirt, a boy’s tie he bought with his own allowance money. He has these things, tucked away, secret, in the back of his closet, but he still has to go to his cousin Amy’s wedding in a dress.  
  
It’s pink, and itchy, and picked out for him by his aunt because _there’s no way your father will be able to help you find something nice, honestly Liesl, look at your hair_. He walks down stairs to find his father in the only suit he owns, the one he wore to his mother’s funeral, and Kurt thinks he might throw up. Or die. Or do something horrible like start crying and beg his father to just let him go change, the right clothes are right up stairs.  
  
Burt looks up at him, and makes a strange face. “You look miserable, kid. That dress must be uncomfortable.” He doesn’t say anything else, but he claps his hand on Kurt’s shoulder and for a second, it’s like he knows. It’s like he can tell that every minute in this horrendous pink monstrosity is killing a little bit of Kurt, the real Kurt, inside of himself.  
  
He doesn’t know, of course he doesn’t, but in that moment Kurt thinks he might be strong enough to tell him. Maybe might even be able to do it soon.  
  
  
  
4)  
  
Perhaps the best thing about being at Dalton is that no one there as ever known him as anything other than Kurt. The Dalton boys are all so mature and most are too genuinely to call anyone names, but the fact that _lady_ wouldn’t be an insult they’d throw at him even if they did is just… it’s like breathing, for the first time.  
  
Blaine knows, but only Blaine, and only Blaine because _we tell each other everything_ and Kurt fell asleep in his binder once on Blaine’s bed and woke up in the kind of agony that would be really hard to lie away. Blaine didn’t treat him differently, just sometimes he’d press his hand to Kurt’s back, against the binder through layers of uniform and smile at him like it was just another thing that made Kurt special, made Kurt worth loving.  
  
Kurt trusted Blaine, more than any of his other friends, even after the Valentines Day debacle. ( _Didn’t want to date you because he cared too much, didn’t want to mess things up, not because you’ve got the wrong parts, Blaine knew and didn’t say that. It maybe made Kurt love him more._ ) Which was why he was here now, going through his closet in nothing but jeans, his binder and a thin, thin t-shirt, Blaine sitting on Kurt’s bed doing Chemistry homework.  
  
“My great-aunt Mildred is sick,” he said, running his fingers over soft chiffon fabric. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Blaine look up at him, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows. Kurt wanted to go smooth it away with his thumb, fingers curling in Blaine’s hair. Instead he curled is fingers into the slippery material.  
  
“Are you close to her?” Blaine asked, tilting his head in concern. Kurt snorted, and shook his head, because no, just no. Blaine made a confused sound and closed his book, focusing all his attention on Kurt, like he did when he wanted Kurt to know he was really listening. That he really cared.  
  
“She’s my mother’s aunt, and she never liked my father. I haven’t seen her for years,” he explained, taking the dress by the hanger, and turning around, trying to be more brave that he felt. “Which means she’s only ever known Liesl.”  
  
Blaine blinked at the soft blue sundress in Kurt’s hands. It was the only dress he owned, and at least it was gorgeous. On Rachel or Quinn, Kurt would love this dress. On himself, it made him want to light it on fire. “So you have to dress in drag? Kurt, that sucks.”  
  
The indignation in Blaine’s voice was more of a balm than all the reassurances Kurt could tell himself. All the repetitions in the world of _doesn’t matter, it’s just clothes, fashion as no gender_ melted under Blaine’s unassuming sympathies. Kurt felt his eyes water, and he looked at the ground. “Yeah it does,” he whispered in response.  
  
He stood there, staring at his feet, until Blaine’s own socked clad toes entered his line of sight. Blaine wrapped him up in a silent hug, smelling like dry cleaned uniforms and prep-school hallways. He hug Kurt close, and did that thing wear he ran his hand across the back of Kurt’s binder. Like he was trying to hug all of him.  
  
Kurt held that feeling close to his heart was he walked into the hospital with his father. He felt top heavy, the bits of him he generally tried to ignore pushed up and out by the bra he’d had to buy. ( _to big to go without now, he was still growing, he’d have to buy a new binder soon, how would Blaine’s hands feel pressed against the back of that?_ ) He held the feeling close while his aunt looked at him with derision, told him he’d be so pretty if he’d just grow his hair out, wear some make-up, don’t you want to be pretty Liesl?  
  
His father gripped his hand, and Kurt focused on that and the memory of Blaine, who was definitely gay, hugging Kurt so tight. Later, Burt called him son and asked him if he’d like to get pizza and Kurt change into his binder and weekend outfit in the bathroom of pizza joint two hours outside Lima. He wonder at how putting on something that restricted the movements of his chest made him feel like he could breathe again.  
  
  
  
5)  
  
The summer of Kurt’s senior year of high school, great-aunt Mildred passed away. Kurt tried to feel bad about it, he did. He didn’t have many people left to connect him to his mother, and he knew he should hold them close. Mildred, though, she was just… nothing like the things Kurt remember in his mother. He remembered her holding him close and telling him he didn’t have to wear heels if he didn’t want to, he remembered her loving him for everything he was.  
  
The fact that he’d be expected to wear a dress to Mildred’s funeral drove home the fact that he could not say the same for the rest of his mother’s family. He’d had to buy a new dress for this, since blue was not appropriate for a funeral. The money he’d been saving for a new pair of jeans, the kind that hugged his ass in a way that made Blaine stutter and turn adorably pink, went instead to this black lacy nightmare.  
  
So here he was standing in front of his closet in a swishy black dress ( _it reminded him of the girl’s nationals dress from last year, he thought maybe he could pretend to be Rachel because that would be a hell of a lot better than being Kurt_ ), bare all the way down to the top of his ass except for the thin clasp of a bra.  
  
Blaine stood behind him, supposedly zipping up the dress, but Kurt suspected he was distracted by the dip of Kurt’s lower back, the dimples above his ass. Another time Kurt might tease him about it, about the fact that they both loved Kurt’s ass so much, Blaine for his own reasons Kurt very much hoped to learn some day, Kurt because asses were genderless, he could be proud of his ass and not feel like it was something that didn’t belong to him. Kurt might tease him about it, if he weren’t feeling so utterly horrible today.  
  
“C’mon, Blaine, please just…” Kurt muttered, and Blaine snapped out of it, drawing the zipper on the dress up his back with a quick _snick_ sound.  
  
It wasn’t the first time Blaine had seen him without a binder, wasn’t even the first since they’d started dating. Summers were hot, and Kurt trusted Blaine, and sometimes Blaine could convince Kurt to strip down to a tshirt and shorts and run through the sprinklers in the back yard or have a water fight with the neglected garden hose. Water and binders didn’t mix well together, and well… it was a small price to pay to see Blaine all tan and wet and shirtless.  
  
It was, however, the first time Blaine had ever seen him in drag. He turned around slowly, biting his lip to keep back all the things he wanted to say because Blaine didn’t like it when he talked himself down. Blaine, though, looked as lost as Kurt felt, like he didn’t quiet know what to say.  
  
Kurt didn’t blame him, not really. Blaine, for everything that he was, kind, loving, absolutely devoted and supportive, was still a 17 year old. He handled things incredibly well, with such grace, Kurt couldn’t blame him for being a little lost. It just kind of sucked that it was at a time when Kurt felt like ripping his own face off.  
  
“Hope you know,” Blaine said quietly, like he was unsure of himself, “That I still see you. Even like this. I still see you, and I still love you.” Kurt drew in a sharp breath, and let himself collapse forward into Blaine’s waiting arms. Blaine might be a bit lost, but he was still Blaine.  
  
And he was still there, waiting in the living room with Carole, when Kurt and Burt got back from the funeral. Kurt wondered absently if he’d stayed all day, making small talk with Kurt’s stepmother just so he could make sure to be there when Kurt got home. He appreciated it, appreciated Blaine, but he couldn’t stop long enough to focus on it. He was rushing upstairs as soon as he was in the door, kicking of the black flats that pinched his feet, hands scrabbling to unzip the ( _hideous, horrendous, ugly, wrong_ ) dress still clinging to the curves Kurt wanted more than anything to wish away.  
  
But then Blaine was there again, unzipping the dress and unhooking the bra. Without a word he helped Kurt into the binder that was laying on his bed, into loose fitting jeans and a Dalton fencing sweatshirt Kurt had stolen sometime last year. Blaine didn’t say anything about how it was almost 90 degrees out, just dropped onto the bed while Kurt turned his air conditioner up to max and let Kurt snuggle into his sides.  
  
“Never again,” Kurt whispered, curling close in his boyfriends arms, and Blaine hummed softly in response. Never again.  
  
  
  
1)  
  
The first thing Kurt did after leaving Sue’s office ( _that dress, stupid dress, all beady and clingy and horrible_ ) was lock himself in the third floor girls bathroom and text Blaine. He didn’t say much, just ‘Dragon women wants me in a dress, I don’t think I can keep it together, 3rd floor BR’. Usually he hated having to use the girl’s bathroom, usually didn’t when he thought he could get away with it, which was most of the time now since his growth spurt.  
  
Now, though, he didn’t think he could risk having to deal with some meathead football or hockey player, not when he felt so shattered in his own skin. He wouldn’t be able to stand tall and brush off the looks saying he didn’t belong there. Today, that might break him.  
  
He was curled over a sink when Blaine got there, fighting rotating urges to cry and throw up. So far he’d done neither, but being able to bury himself in Blaine’s arms and just forget for a while made it easier. Easier to be strong, to be himself, to be rational and not fall apart.  
  
Once he calmed down, he reasoned that maybe he to could spin it, in his own head at least, to be a good thing that Sue had asked him. She hadn’t been asking for Liesl Hummel, after all, she’d been asking for Kurt Hummel in a dress. She wanted him to pretend to be a girl, because she saw him as a boy. It was still wrong, and it still made his skin crawl, but she’d asked him as a boy. She’d asked him because he was the boy in the group who’d pass the best, but if he looked at it the right way, it was because he passed as well as he did already.  
  
And really, when he thought about it, he was lucky. He admired Unique for what she’d done, but at the same time, he felt bad for her. Because when Unique danced at nationals, all anyone saw was a boy dressed like a girl. He’d heard the whispers and the ‘he/she’ comments and it made him feel sick, but quietly grateful. Because when he got up on stage and sang with his boyfriend, no one pointed and whispered and called him brave or inspirational. They just saw a midwestern gay boy singing with another midwestern gay boy.  
  
He was lucky because he could pass. He could pass well enough to be asked dress in drag, and not have it be someone asking him to represent his physical gender. He could be asked to dress in drag and have the person asking know they were asking him to dress in drag. He had that. And Unique didn’t. For at least the foreseeable future she’d be branded as the tranny of the high school show choir world. It made him incredibly sad, watching her receive her VIP trophy, and knowing it wasn’t because she was so, so talented. It was just another way for people to highlight all the things that made her not normal.  
  
Kurt was happy with normal. He was thrilled with extraordinary, with being special because of the things he’d done ( _National championship, NYADA acceptance, boyfriend, son, brother_ ) but not unusual for what he was. He’d go to New York as himself, a boy with an incredible boyfriend waiting just behind to follow him there, gay and out and proud. New York would be like Dalton only better, a whole city were the baggage of his birth wouldn’t follow him around. And, the occasional Halloween costume aside, Kurt Hummel would never have to dress in drag again.


End file.
